Monday, 24 March 2014

I've got a review today of what now may be one of my favourite foundations. Recently this foundation has been creeping up a lot in different blog posts and youtube videos but I first heard about it through Amelia from Liana Beauty as she has been raving about it, and compared it to the Georgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation (which is also on the 'to try' list).

RRP: £9.99

Before I bought the foundation, I went into boots with a little pot and squirted some sample in to try before I buy. I wanted to make sure I had the right colour and the formula suited my skin type before buying it.

I really recommend doing this before buying a foundation, after all testers are there to test right?

The foundation itself is slightly watery but goes on the skin to leave a light-medium coverage. There was a time when I wouldn't have even dreamed of wearing a foundation with this light of a coverage (for me), but now I can I love letting my skin breathe slightly throughout the day.

The foundation gives a lovely finish on the skin, and it lasts really well.

If I'm having a busy day I may need to blot a little at around 4pm but if it's an average day I can until I take my make up off without touching up.

This photo is of my base make up: foundation, concealer and blusher at 7am

This is my whole make up look for the day

Apologies for the rubbish photo, but this was taken on my phone in the toilets at work! This photo was at 3pm so 8 hours later, the foundation is still pretty much intact!

I really love this foundation, and I'm so glad there is this opportunity now through beauty bloggers to hear about such great products which you may never thought you'd try!

Thursday, 20 March 2014

Another lifestyle post today and it's all about Bootea, the teatox for weight loss.

I heard about this tea through twitter as I follow countless exercise motivation/healthy lifestyle accounts on twitter and one of them tweeted about this tea. After looking through their twitter account a bit more and seeing the before and after photos other people had posted I decided to give it ago myself.

I think this post needs a bit of a background with my weight. I'm not overweight, nor have I ever been but like almost every girl I've never been fully happy with my body. I don't weigh myself, the only times I've been weighed in the past few years is at the hospital so I 100% go by how I look and feel.

I used to a lot slimmer until I started sixth form where free periods entailed sitting around with friends and eating absolute junk and I noticed myself getting bigger.

When I started uni in September 2011, I was the unhappiest I'd been with my body.

It was after Christmas of first year when I decided to change. I stopped buying junk food and joined a gym going 3 times a week, with a mixture of weights and cardio. I quickly noticed feeling a lot better in myself as well as my clothes fitting me better.

This photo was taken 4 months after the one above.

The double chin is a family trait so I anything I can do to keep it at bay is a bonus!!

Since then, I've always fluctuated but I've never gone back to my first size. I'm always concious to eat healthy, but don't get me wrong I love junk food as much as the next person so I would never cut it out completely. However, I've now upped my exercise to 4/5 times a week, with a mixture of classes such as spin and bums & tums, weights and cardio. I feel so much better in myself than I did when I started uni 3 years ago, and it has definitely been a lifestyle change not just a quick solution.

I'm going on holiday in 3 weeks so right now a bikini body is totally on the mind, so I thought why not try the tea...what's to lose?

A 14 day teatox comes with 14 daytime teas and 7 night time teas.

The teas contain all natural ingredients and come as loose leafs in a teabag. They taste like green tea (which I only started liking recently).

A little warning however, the night time tea contains ingredients which can induce a laxative effect so they recommend to start drinking it at the weekend so you know how your body will react at home rather than whilst being out. Luckily, it never caused any problems for me.

Before starting the tea, I had been so busy with life in general that I'd been slacking at the gym so I lost the toning I'd worked hard to achieve.

As you can see though, by the tea alone my stomach is definitely flatter.

The only annoying this about it is whilst I was drinking the tea, I got viral meningitis which meant I was more or less knocked out for the whole time I was doing the teatox. For the two weeks I was drinking the teas, I only went to the gym once so I think if I hadn't got ill my results could have been so much better.

Either way the tea has kick started my weight loss again and until I go away, I'm hitting the gym extra hard!

If you want any other posts on my journey, such as a food diary or my motivation pics/quotes, let me know!

As you can see, I went for a casual outfit for the day as I knew we'd be doing a lot of walking.

We started the day with some browsing in the shops down Carnaby Street and Oxford Street (of course, when in London right?).

Once we made it to Selfridge's we stopped for a well-deserved Pinkberry, which was super delicious!

We did lunch the wrong way round so after the frozen yoghurt we walked back up to Carnaby street and went for lunch in Leon. The food was so good and healthy, which made it better. The weather by this point was gorgeous which meant there were no tables left outside so we wandered the the nearest bench to sit and eat our lunch in the sun.

David had a superfood salad whilst I had a fish finger wrap and a lemonade, delicious.

Once we had lunch, we headed over to the Palladium theatre to watch the show. The show itself was so so funny. Harry Hill wrote it so as you can imagine if you used to watch TV Burp it was madness. At one point I turned to David and said 'what on earth is going on?' but it really was brilliant.

You definitely need to go to enjoy yourself and it's not a serious musical like Les Mis, for example.

The main reason we actually went to see the show was because Nigel Harman was playing Simon Cowell. Back when Nigel was in Eastenders, I absolutely loved him and everything he's been in since.

David and I actually went to see Shrek the Musical a few years ago as Nigel was playing Lord Farquaad but the day we went he wasn't there.

I made it my mission to meet him after the show this time, and the mission was completed.

After the show (and my day had been made by meeting Nigel), we headed over to Covent Garden to meet one of our friends from home whose at uni in London for dinner.

Covent Garden was way to busy for us to get somewhere to eat in time to make our train home, so we ended up in Bella Italia in Leicester Square.

It was so lovely to catch up with Toby.

Then the day was over but not before we had an absolute nightmare journey back, but that's a whole different story.

I really do love London and I love how trains mean I can just come up for the day!

Thursday, 13 March 2014

I've got a review for you today on the Blanx White Shock Intensive Whitening Treatment*.

This product is as you can tell by the name a teeth whitening treatment, however it comes with the Blanx LED bite which is essentially a gum shield that activates the whitening part of the treatment.

Stockist: Boots

The box comes with toothpaste and the LED Bite (RRP £14.99 for 30ml). The toothpaste is suitable for daily use as it doesn't contain any peroxides or chemical agents which would cause damage to tooth enamel.

It's also suitable for an intensive treatment once a week, where you apply the paste directly onto the teeth.

It has lovely minty taste, and that's saying something coming from me as I'm really picky with the taste of toothpaste. Not only that, but it left my teeth feeling really clean and passed my tongue swipe test...we all do it don't we?

It's recommended in instructions to use the toothpaste 3 times a day which I didn't do that as it's hard to brush my teeth during the day at work, but I don't think it made a massive difference.

Once you've brushed your teeth, you place the gum shield in your mouth, activate the light by pressing the button and leave it in for a minute (10 if you're doing an intensive treatment).

The shield is really comfortable in your mouth as it fits right in-between your lips.

The toothpaste contains an ingredient called ActiluX (the only toothpaste in the world to do so) which is activated by the LED light. The more light the ActiluX receives, the more intense the whitening action.

The box comes with a BlanXometer where you can compare how much brighter your teeth got. I would definitely saying after giving this a two week trial, my teeth have gone at least 2 shades whiter which is amazing. I'm quite lucky with the natural whiteness of my teeth anyway as I don't drink tea/coffee or smoke, so my teeth aren't that yellow.

The only issue I had with this product was to do more with me than the product I think, but I thought I would mention it incase anyone else is the same. I've generally got good dental health, I've never had a filling and the dentist always says everything looks great when I go, however I do tend to have a build up of plaque if I don't brush properly. A few months ago the build up got to a point where my gums would bleed every time I brushed my teeth. Not only that, my gums would bleed at random moments...I'd eat a sandwich and there would be blood around my bite marks in the bread, gross I know!

I've managed to get into a great dental care routine which has completely stopped the bleeding of my gums, but whilst using this toothpaste they've started bleeding again. Not badly but enough to ruin the work I've put in to stop it.

I do think that it's more my gums than the product as all the other reviews I've read of this treatment, no one has said anything similar but I just wanted to throw it out there.

Overall, I'm really impressed with how great this product was and how much whiter my teeth have become in such a short period of time. I'm definitely going to continue using it more as an intensive treatment once a week rather than daily so I can get my gums to stop bleeding again.

Sunday, 9 March 2014

As always I've been doing beauty shopping so thought I'd show you the stuff I've been buying.

Of course, I had to purchase some stuff from the Tanya Burr Collection.

RRP: Nail Polish £5.99
Lipgloss: £6.99

I picked up the lipgloss in Picnic in the Park and the Nail Polish in Little Duck. Both colours are perfect for spring/summer. The lipgloss smells of the Haribo Giant Strawbs which is amazing to have on your lips all the time!

Ardell Natural Style Demi Wispies
RRP £5.49

My normal false eyelashes for nights out are massive things and I've recently decided that I hate that look of 'false eyelashes' now. However, I did want a pair for 21st night out which is in a few weeks and Alison from Amarixe always used to speak about how natural these ones looked so I thought I'd give them a go.

Soap and Glory the Ultimelt
RRP £10

I swear recently Soap and Glory has just exploded all over youtube?! It was either FleurDeForce or TalkBeckyTalk (they filmed the video together) raving about this and I've been wanting to try a new hot cloth cleanser for a while, so I picked this one up. I'll do I review on it shortly.

Soap & Glory Kick Ass Concealer: Medium
RRP £10

Top: Undereye Brightening Conealer
Bottom: Face Concealer

This has been on my wishlist for maybe over a year so I decided to finally treat myself to it. It's a cute little compact containing an under eye brightening concealer, a face concealer and a setting powder. As you can see in the swatches the undereye concealer really does a have a lovely brightening shimmer to it. I'm hoping that this product will be in my March favourites so let's wait and see!

L'Oreal True Match Foundation in N4 Beige
RRP £9.99

Boots 3 for 2 is a marvellous thing but I don't think my bank balance would agree. Amelia Liana has recently been raving about this foundation being a dupe for the Georgio Amarni Luminous Silk foundation which has been on my 'to try' list for a while (due to another youtuber, Anna from Vivianna Does Makeup - I swear this whole post has been enabled purchases from Youtube!). So I picked it up in N4 Beige, after testing it out for a while...post coming soon *cheeky plug, follow me to know when it comes out*.

Lastly, I have two items which aren't pictured at the top as I didn't have them when I wrote this post but I knew they were coming. My sister (hey Avi as I know you'll be reading this and what a shoutout) went to New York last week, so I asked for her to bring me back a Maybelline Colour Elixir after hearing Essie Button rave about them. She also bought me back a bath and body works hand sanitizer, which smells so good!